Luke 2:49 “And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?” Even from at 12 years old Jesus understood that he was here for a purpose, and that his purpose was to be about his Father’s business. And then in Luke 4:18-19, at age 30, we again see him expounding on his purpose, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Jesus was a man of purpose, and we too must be people of purpose. Like Jesus, our purpose is to be about our Father’s business
As a church and as Christians God has commissioned us to take the gospel to the world. Mar 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
That means that we must be purposeful in our evangelism. Every one of us have within our circle of living (all the people with whom we have contact), we all have non-Christians. We have people that for whatever reason have not yet given their lives to Christ. Maybe they have rejected the invitation, but more than likely they have never been given the invitation.
Statistics show that the majority of people who don’t attend church say that they have never been invited. If we have trouble inviting people to church, then I can guarantee that we have an even harder time evangelizing them. Let’s be honest, most of the time the only people we invite to church are people we know are receptive to those invitations, (i.e. people who are already saved, or who are already attending another church.)
The word “evangelist” comes from the Greek euaggelistes (yoo-ang-ghel-is-tace) which means a preacher of the good news. Before the invention of twitter, e-mail, the world wide web, television, telephone, telegraph and even the postal service people depended on the evangelist to carry good news. For example, if the country was at war, and a battle was won, the captain would send an evangelist back to the city with the good news of victory. As an evangelist, we have been commissioned to carry the message of victory. 2000 years ago Jesus Christ won a decisive battle. As he hung on the cross he said it is finished. When he died he defeated the enemy. The bible says in Colossians 2:13-15, “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” Jesus defeated the enemy, he took the spoil and has paraded the enemy through the city as a sign that the people need no longer to worry or be afraid. The trouble is, not everyone has heard of the victory.
The enemy knows that he has been defeated, but he is willing to take advantage of those that are ignorant to the fact.
As the evangelist would run with the message of victory they would tell everyone. They would run through the streets, shouting the message for all to hear. As an evangelist it is your job to simply sow the word of God; we should share with everyone. We should sow the seed at home, at the store, at work, at school, while walking down the street, while riding the bus, while on vacation, everywhere we go. What they do with the message is not your concern, your only responsibility is to share it.
What happens if we fail to sow the seed? What if I just keep the good news to myself? Luk 12:16-21, “And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” This man’s field brought forth much fruit, and he built bigger barns to house his fruit, but God rebuked him. He rebuked him because within his fruit was seed that should not have been stored up for him, but sown. Fruit stored up, begins to decompose, to rot, to stink, to cause infestation
Or we could consider the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. The master was going away so he called to his servants and gave to each of them talents. To one five, to another two and to a third one. The first two invested their talents and gained more, and were rewarded when the master returned. The servant with one talent instead hid it and upon his master’s return presented him with the one talent. This servant had his talent removed and was cast into darkness. Some people are blessed with great revelation, and then there are some who only know one thing: That Jesus died for their sins. If you can’t invest that one thing into the life of another, if you can’t teach someone else that Jesus died for their sins, then based on this parable, the thing that you value, can and will be taken away. The message must be shared.
And let me take a moment to remind you that the message you are sharing is one of Good News. When I was in college there was a man who would preach in the middle of campus.
I have no doubt that his intentions were well intended, and it was his desire to evangelize
But his message was anything but good news. His entire message was about how God hated the homosexual. How god hated the drunkard. How god hated everyone that didn’t go to church.
I can honestly say that in the four years of listening to this man preach; almost weekly, I never saw one person come to Christ. Instead I saw lost people walk away, with a bitter taste in their mouth concerning God, Christians and the church. The heart of an evangelist is one of compassion, not condemnation.
When you function in the role of evangelist, you must remember that your ministry is focused on the lost; the non-Christian. That means that more than likely they are not going to live like you do. They may not be model citizens. They may be drunkards, prostitutes, or drug addicts. They may curse, they may be offensive. We must have compassion for them. Look at how Jesus dealt with the sinner. To the adulteress he stooped to her level, and refused to condemn her. To the tax collector he ate in his home. To the leaper he reached out. To the hungry he offered food. To the murderer he offered forgiveness. How far have we come when we see the adulteress and we talk about her. We see the tax collector and we shun him. We see the leaper and we avoid him. We see the hungry and we walk by. We see the accused and sentence them. How much more effective would we be if instead of waving signs of intimidation and hate in the faces of the homosexual, we decided to cross the line and offer them a hand of friendship and share with them out of a heart of love the truth of God’s love for them? What if instead of gossiping about the girl that just got pregnant, we reached out to help her?
What if instead of trying to keep hell out of our church, we took the church into hell? This is what Jesus meant when he said He would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail. It means that hell will not be able to stop us from entering in and conquering the land. But instead of conquering, we have resorted to barring the church doors and doing all we can to keep the sinner out. Don’t let them in they might infect the whole church. Jesus said, I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinner to repentance. He said it is the sick that need a doctor, not those that are well. As Christians we have the medicine, we have the cure, and his name is Jesus. We want people to taste and see that the lord is good, not make it so bitter that no one is willing to take it.
The evangelist would share the message with everyone along the way, however his ultimate destination was to arrive at the throne room of the king. He was the one who the ultimately wanted to hear of the victory in the battle. So too it is with us. Our ultimate destination is to arrive at the side of our king, The Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who ultimately wants to hear of the victory. Thus we are to share the message from now until we reach that place, which ultimately means until we enter into eternity. We never cease being the evangelist. And upon entering the throne room of the king, the evangelist would receive his reward. The whole reason he was willing to carry the message was for this moment, when his job had been completed, the king himself would bestow upon him treasure. Likewise, when we finish our course, when we fight the good fight and keep the faith, and we stand before him as those who have carried the message, we will bow before him with the news of our victory, and he will place upon our brow, a crown of righteousness.
